2014 Dow Jones Industrial Average Return

Unlike typical financial sites which have already reported that the Dow Jones Industrial Average returned a ‘meh’ 7.55% from the open on January 1st until the close on the 31st of December, we here at Don’t Quit Your Day Job recognize that real investors don’t burn their dividend checks when they receive them. With reinvested dividends, the 2014 Dow Jones Industrial Average Return was an even more solid 10.02%.

This is – of course – the correct way to calculate the return a typical investor will have realized. Those investors, of course, can’t invest directly in the index though – allow some variance for fees, tax implications, and purchase timings (this is a theoretical maximum). For whatever reason, financial media will report index returns straight up – as if an index like the Dow Jones, with massive industrial bell-weathers and high dividend payments… should or would match the price return of something like a dividend-stingy NASDAQ.